Dream a Little Dream

  "What did you mean about Ethan coddling me?"

  "Nothing. My mouth got away from me again."

  "For God's sake, Rachel, could you just try to shoot straight with me for once!" He stalked away.

  She frowned. He was as prickly as rusted barbed wire. She finished buttoning her dress as she followed him back to the kitchen, where he'd yanked on a Chicago Stars cap and was shoving on his sunglasses, obviously having forgotten that it was drizzling outside.

  She walked over to him. Her full skirt brushed against the legs of his jeans, and she resisted the urge to curl her arm around his waist. "People talk to you as if they're afraid you're going to break apart at any minute. I don't think that's good for you; it keeps you from moving forward. You're a strong man. Everyone needs to remember that, including you."

  "Strong!" He ripped off the sunglasses and sent them skittering across the counter. "You don't know anything about it." His cap hit the counter, then bounced to the floor.

  She didn't back away. "You are, Gabe. You're tough."

  "Don't confuse me with you!"

  His footsteps punished the marble floor as he stalked past her and headed for the family room.

  She'd been alone with pain too often herself to even think about letting him go. The family room was empty, but the sliding doors that led to the deck were open. As she walked toward them, she saw him standing outside clutching the railing as he stared up at Heartache Mountain.

  The drizzle had changed to light rain, but he didn't seem to notice that he was getting wet. Beads of water glistened in his hair and darkened the shoulders of his T-shirt. She'd never seen anyone who looked lonelier, and she stepped out into the rain with him.

  He gave no indication that he heard her coming up behind him, so that she wasn't quite prepared when he spoke. "I keep a gun by my bed, Rachel. And it's not there for protection."

  "Oh, Gabe…"

  Every part of her wanted to touch him and offer what comfort she could, but he seemed surrounded by an invisible barrier, one she was afraid to cross. Instead, she moved next to him and lay her arms over the wet railing. "Does it get any easier?"

  "It was easier for a while. Then you showed up." "I've made it more difficult for you?"

  He hesitated. "I don't know anymore. But you've changed things."

  "And you don't like that."

  "Maybe I like it too much." He finally turned to her. "I guess these past couple of weeks have been a little better. You've been a distraction."

  She gave him a weak smile. "I'm glad."

  He scowled, but there wasn't any real anger behind it. "I didn't say you'd been a good distraction. Just a distraction."

  "I understand." Rain soaked her dress, but it was warmer out here than inside the air-conditioned house, and she wasn't cold.

  "I miss her all the time." His eyes searched her face, and his voice grew deeper, huskier. "So why do I want you so much that I ache with it?"

  The rumble of distant thunder accompanied his words, almost seemed part of them. A tremor passed through her. "I think… I think we've been drawn together by desperation."

  "I can't give you a damn thing except sex."

  "Maybe that's exactly what I need from you."

  "You don't mean that."

  "You don't know what I mean." Being so close was suddenly overwhelming, and she turned her back to him. Crossing her arms over her chest, she moved to the other side of the deck. Overhead, the sky hung low, while mist clung to the mountains like a tattered gray prom dress.

  "I had my womanhood stolen from me, Gabe. On my wedding night he gave me a lecture right from the nineteenth century on how my body was God's vessel, and he'd disturb it as little as possible. He made me lie there. He didn't touch my breasts or caress me. He just pushed himself inside me. It hurt like hell, and I started to cry, and the more I cried the happier that made him because it was proof of my virtue, proof that I wasn't carnal like him. But that wasn't true. I'd been fascinated by sex for as long as I could remember. So don't try to tell me what I want."

  "All right. I won't."

  The deep sympathy in his voice was too much for her. She turned and frowned at him. "I don't know why I'm talking to you about this, why I'm even thinking about having sex with you. Considering, my luck with men, you're probably as big a dud in bed as he was."

  One corner of his mouth lifted in a faint smile. "Could be."

  She braced her hips against the railing. "Were you faithful to your wife?"

  "Yes."

  "Have you been with a lot of women?"

  "No. I fell in love with her when I was fourteen."

  He met her eyes, and she tried to understand what he was telling her. "Do you mean…"

  "One woman, Rachel. There's only been one woman in my life."

  "Not even anyone since she died?"

  "A hooker in Mexico, but I sent her away as soon as she took off her clothes. You might be right about that dud thing."

  She smiled, feeling strangely lighthearted. "Anybody else?"

  He came toward her. "Nobody. And I think I've had my fill of questions for now."

  "I've told you my entire sexual history, pathetic as it is. You could be a little more forthcoming."

  "I haven't even thought much about sex since… for the last few years. At least not until you did your little striptease."

  As he stopped in front of her, she tried not to let her embarrassment show. "I was desperate. I know I'm not much now, but I used to be pretty."

  He touched her for the first time, picking up a lock of damp hair and hooking it behind her ear. "You're pretty, Rachel. Especially since you've started to eat. You've finally got some color in your cheeks."

  She felt as if he were drinking in her face, and it flustered her. "Not to mention my cold nose. It's okay. You don't have to lie. All I'm saying is that I used to be fairly nice-looking."

  "I was giving you a compliment."

  "Which was the compliment part? The cold nose?"

  "I didn't say a thing about a cold nose. You're the one. I—" He laughed. "You're the most maddening woman. I can't figure out why I like being with you."

  "A thought for the day, Bonner. If the way you've been treating me is a mark of fondness, maybe you'd better take a fresh look at your interpersonal communication skills."

  He smiled. "You're shivering."

  "I'm cold," she lied.

  "I guess I can take care of that." Once again, his hand went to her hair. He pushed his fingers through it on one side, then dropped his head and touched his lips to the corner of her jaw that he'd uncovered.

  His body pressed against hers. She felt his lips on her cheek, and her arms wound around his waist, drawing him closer. Oh, yes… She absorbed the feel of him, the way the muscles in his back flexed beneath her palms, the heat from his chest against her chill breasts, his erection jammed against her. Just beneath the fragile layer of her skin, her pulses hammered.

  His lips tugged her earlobe, and the sound of his breathing rasped in her ear. Her eyes drifted shut. She had so much at stake here. If she let this go farther, there would be no tender romance with him, only sex. Could she abandon the fantasy of a perfect love?

  But then she realized she had abandoned that fantasy long ago. Somehow her life had grown too spartan for fantasies. She'd stripped her existence down to the bare essentials, not allowing herself even the smallest of luxuries. Would it be so terrible to grab something just for herself? Something that would give her pleasure?

  He moved a few inches back, and his palms covered her breasts. As his warmth seeped into her skin, her uncertainty disappeared.

  His thumbs brushed her nipples and his voice became a husky whisper in her ear. "I've been wanting to touch you here ever since I walked into the house and saw you standing there in this wet pink dress."

  He scraped his thumbnails over the hard tips. She let out a sigh of pleasure. It felt so good. So perfect.

  Back and forth his thumbnails went, abradin
g her through the wet pink cotton. Desire exploded inside her. Spirals of heat coursed through her blood, and she wanted more.

  She touched him through his jeans, tentatively at first, then stroking him more aggressively, trying to discern his exact structure beneath the denim.

  His breathing grew harsh. She wanted more. She reached for his zipper.

  He stepped back as if she'd hurt him. His chest heaved, and he choked out his words. "Maybe we'd better slow down."

  Only seconds earlier she'd been hot, but now a chill passed through her. She heard restraint in his voice, so familiar from her marriage, and he continued as he spoke again. "I don't want to rush you into anything you're not ready for."

  That awful consideration. That horrible, stifling solicitude as if she weren't capable of making up her mind, as if she were breakable, untouchable, undefilable. Not a woman at all.

  She'd spilled her guts to him, but he hadn't understood a thing.

  "You're still new at this." He put more distance between them and ran the flat of his hand absentminedly over his chest, as if he were smoothing his T-shirt. "Let's go inside."

  She wanted to slug him and scream at him and burst into tears all at once. Why had she expected him to understand? She couldn't contain her hurt. "I'm not a virgin! And there's nothing you could do that'd be too raunchy for me, do you understand? Nothing that's too kinky! You've screwed this up, Bonner, and now you aren't ever going to touch me." Her anger boiled, then spilled over. "As a matter of fact, you can go to hell!"

  She whirled around and shot down the slippery wooden steps to the lawn. It was wildly overgrown. Shrubbery hung over the flagstone path and grass tangled around her ankles as she fled.

  "Rachel!"

  She'd left her shoes in the laundry room, but she didn't care. She'd climb Heartache Mountain barefoot before she'd let another man treat her like she was some kind of sexually neutered icon.

  Her hands knotted into fists at her side, and she realized she didn't want to run away at all. What she really wanted to do was go right back there and tell him what an insensitive, unfeeling, imperceptive ass he was!

  She spun around and stalked toward the deck, only to see him doing his own war dance right toward her. As he approached, his teeth were clenched. "Don't you think you're overreacting just a little bit?"

  She wanted to shout something really obscene at him, but she wasn't too effective with obscenity yet. A few more weeks in his company, though, and she could probably turn pro. "Stuff yourself."

  In three long strides, he had her. He grabbed the front of her dress and began pulling open the top buttons. He looked annoyed, irritated, but not actually angry.

  He peeled the dress apart. "You want kinky? I'll tell you about kinky. Do you know there are men in this world who get their kicks by bringing a woman right to the point of orgasm, and then, at the exact moment she comes, strangling her to death!"

  He jerked the dress down, baring her to the waist as he trapped her arms in the fabric. Then he bent his head and bit her on the inner slope of one breast.

  "Ow! That hurt!"

  "Good. Any more trouble out of you, and I'll do it again."

  His lips nuzzled her wet nipple, and her anger fled.

  "Now where was I?" he asked.

  She shuddered at the huskiness in his voice, the warmth of his breath on her cool skin. "Oh, Gabe… What if you screw this up again?"

  "Then I guess you'll just have to keep after me till I get it right."

  "I guess." She sighed and rested her cheek against his chest.

  "In the meantime, you might be thinking about exactly how wide you can spread those legs because I intend to spend a long time between them."

  She moaned. Maybe he'd gotten it right after all.

  Chapter Eleven

  « ^ »

  Just as she was starting to relax and think this might work out after all, he drew back again. "I know you're going to tear into me for this, but it strikes me that, for somebody who wants to be a wanton woman, you should look out for yourself better."

  "What do you mean?"

  "You've asked me a dozen questions since this got started, but not one of them had anything to do with whether or not I might have a condom on me."

  He was right. She hadn't given a thought to birth control, probably because she'd never used it. It had taken her so long to get pregnant with Edward that she'd been afraid she was infertile.

  "Do you have one? Stupid. Of course you don't. Why would you?" She jerked the dress back over her breasts and regarded him glumly. "Sex is so easy for some women. Why is it so hard for me?"

  His knuckles brushed her cheekbone and he smiled. "Actually, I do."

  "You do?"

  He slipped his hand inside the collar of her dress and cupped her neck. "This past week the air between us has been hot enough to boil water, so I bought some on Monday. And don't think everybody in town knows about it. I drove over to Brevard, so we could keep this between ourselves." He paused. "I wouldn't hurt you for the world, sweetheart."

  The endearment felt like warm syrup poured right over her heart. His voice grew soft and gruff. "Now are you ready to settle down so we can enjoy this, or do we have to keep talking for another hundred years."

  The unsteadiness inside her vanished. "I'm ready." She smiled. "Let's go inside."

  He regarded her thoughtfully. "I don't think so. If you were a nice lady, I'd take you in the house. But a wanton woman like you doesn't need a bed." He slipped the dress back down over her shoulders and cupped her breasts.

  The next thing she knew, they were kneeling in the wet grass and her dress had fallen down around her hips. Through the haze of her desire, she realized they hadn't kissed. She wanted to see what it would be like to engage in one of those dirty soul kisses with him. She leaned back far enough to gaze at his obstinate mouth, then tilted her head toward it and closed her eyes.

  Her lips brushed his, but a strand of her hair was in the way. She reached up to push it aside, only to feel herself tumbling backward.

  He sprawled next to her, slipped his hand under her full skirt, and ran his palm up the inside of her leg. A lock of wet, dark hair curled over his forehead. His white T-shirt had gone transparent from the rain, and she could see his flesh beneath. His fingers brushed over the silky crotch of her panties.

  "You feel so good," he said.

  She lay nearly naked in the high, wet grass, and she should have been cold, but she was on fire. She couldn't speak as he tortured her through the nylon, almost, but not quite, touching where she most wanted to be touched. He set one leg across her knee, holding it open, as if there were any need.

  "Too many clothes," she managed, clutching a handful of wet cotton T-shirt in her fist.

  "My thoughts exactly."

  Even as they rose to their knees, he continued to cup her, rub her, so her legs remained parted and her breathing grew shallow and rapid. She jerked his T-shirt from his jeans and dragged the wet fabric up over his chest.

  He pushed his finger beneath the leg opening of her panties and slipped it inside her.

  She gasped and sagged against him.

  "Don't move," he whispered.

  He withdrew, circled, entered. Withdrew again. That torturous circling. Another entry.

  "Oh, no…" she moaned.

  He caught her earlobe between his lips and held her still like a great male animal keeping his mate in place while he took his pleasure.

  She groped for the snap on his jeans, fumbled with the zipper, slipped her hand inside and caught him in her fist.

  Now he was the one who gasped.

  "Don't…" he moaned. He withdrew his finger and moved it forward. He rubbed.

  "Don't…" she moaned, as she stroked him.

  They shuddered together, each on the brink of a precipice neither was ready to tumble over.

  He took his hand away.

  She took her hand away.

  They rose together, and he let her finish remov
ing his clothes. They made a bed from her dress, his jeans and T-shirt. He threw her tiny yellow panties on top, then stepped back to gaze at her as she stood before him, the rain running in rivulets over her shoulders and past the sprinkle of freckles on her chest. It slid over her breasts and down her belly.

  While he gazed at her, she looked her fill at him. His chest was muscular from hard work, his abdomen flat where it wasn't rippled with muscle. Rain matted the dark hair at his groin, making his erection even more prominent. She could no longer resist touching it.

  "Take your time." He drew in his breath, and his voice rose slightly in pitch. "I'll give you all of five seconds."

  He gave her longer, although not much, and then she found herself once again falling backward as he tumbled her onto the ragtag bed they'd made in the wet Carolina grass.

  He spread her legs, and she knew that he was going to do something blissfully raunchy. She squeezed her eyes shut as he raised her knees. "Oh, Bonner… Please don't disappoint me."

  "It's a good thing," he whispered against her inner thigh, "that I'm a man who does his best work under pressure."

  "Ohhh…"

  She hadn't expected that he would dawdle so much, taking his time as he parted her, studied her, touched here and there with the tip of his callused finger, brushed with his lips, his tongue… When she felt the first gentle suction, she began to sob.

  He understood, and he didn't stop. She shattered within seconds.

  As she recovered, she felt her eyes fill with tears. "Thanks, Bonner," she whispered.

  "My pleasure."

  He reached for the wallet that had fallen out of his jeans, but she caught his arm. "Not yet, okay?"

  He groaned, but fell back. She liked that he was willing to let her take the lead, and now she was the one who dawdled, touched, and explored, satisfying years of curiosity.

  With no warning, she found herself on her back while he grabbed his wallet and spoke in a strangled whisper. "I'm sorry, sweetheart. I know this is important to you, but believe me, you'll get a lot more enjoyment if you let me take over now."